Our first screening occurred over the weekend of October 11th and 12th. The screenings were well attended by the community and a couple of Oberlin College students. The short film "Mighty Like a Rose" by filmmaker Alex Morrison was screened. A discussion followed. Professor/Filmmaker Rian Brown has also agreed to screen her works on November 1st-2nd.

October 14th, 2002

Two new filmmakers have shown interest in screening at future events. Professor of Electronic Music/Filmmaker Tom Lopez will be showing a few short animation pieces:

"Auxilio & Au Secours" was composed in Austin, Texas (1998, revised in Oberlin, Ohio 2000). This work was created for a video by Anita Pantin. Both elements, audio and video, were inspired by text. Anita developed the visual elements from 'De Donde Son Los Cantantes' by Severo Sarduy, Tom developed the musical elements and incorporated some words from 'The Waves' by Virginia Woolf.

"Bar None" was composed in Austin, Texas (1998). "Bar None" is, I don't know what it is; I just tap my foot to it!

"kin-askesis" was composed in Austin, Texas (1997). This work was composed for MIDI grand piano, Max/MSP software, and video by Nate Pagel.

and Professor/Filmmaker Jeremy Newman will be screening three of his short works:

"Synagogues on Fire"(experimental video short about the Holocaust)

"Sasha" (less experimental video short about the immigrant experience, aging in America, family)

"Children of Jacob" (doc. video short about converts to the Jewish faith in Charleston, WV).

"Fires of Heaven," Kent Stanley escapes from prison determined to kill the man known as Sam Rowling. Kent blames him for his family's death in a fire over twenty years ago. His plan is simple: To make Rowling suffer like they did. However, his search leads him to someone he has never wanted to face before -- himself.

and a second by filmmaker Steve Pribish, a thirty minute documentary/fiction film entitled "Goose World," about the phenomena of stone geese in the Midwest.

October 16th, 2002

Filmmaker Chip Karpus joins the Foxgrape Film Series calendar with his work "Frankie of the Head," scheduled to be screened November 30th and December 1st. Chip will be attending only one of the screenings however, as well as filmmaker Jeremy Newman.

October 23rd, 2002

The Foxgrape Film Series will be featured on Friday in the Chronicle Telegram. The article will be placed within the insert section of the paper, released weekly.

November 12th, 2002

We have picked up filmmaker Kasumi at Synapse Productions to screen a number of her short films. In addition to being an experimental video and film maker, Kasumi is a musician who has performed twice at Carnegie Hall and who has recorded four LP albums; a theatrical production designer, and a published author. While in Japan, her soundtrack performance of Oginsama was nominated for an Academy award. Her written work includes two published books, over 50 newspaper and magazine articles published worldwide and several dramatic film scripts currently under option. She has worked in every aspect of film and video production - from scenic painting for Ridley Scott to sound track production for Shohei Imamura to feature film script writing for Pat Morita.

Her projects have included small independent films, experimental films, music videos, documentaries, TV commercials, and Hollywood movies. Her films have been screened ­ and won the highest awards ­ in shows andfestivals in Canada, Japan, Korea, Iran, Spain, Turkey, Germany, Italy, England and the USA.

Electronic Music composer Gary Nelson will screen a few of his short animation works on the following weekend.

"Hierarchy" (12:00) is based on 16 paintings by Gorbach. Based on a poem written describing the paintings and the methods she used to make them. The paintings were made by selecting small portions from a larger canvas. The sound track is derived by digitally recording and manipulating Gorbach's nearly 50 readings of the poem. The subtext of the work is "deconstruction."

"Charitoo" (8:30) is a verb of Greek origin meaning "to endue with divine favor or grace." The "theme" of this work is the idealization of women by male artists and the recognition that such ideals are quite at odds with the realities of women's existence.

"Death and Transfiguration" (10:30) is based loosely on the orchestral tone poem of the same name by Richard Strauss. Gorbach made the images by animating black and white photographs of things dead in nature - uprooted and fallen trees, leaves.

December 12th, 2002

Starting on the 21st of December, the Foxgrape Film Series will limit screenings to one day a week. Screenings will be held on Saturday nights at 9:00.

I have also procured a video projector, which finally makes the Foxgrape Film Series into a portable exhibition.

January 23rd, 2003

The Carlyle Shop screening on January 18th was a great success with attending filmmaker Seth Thompson and more screenings will be held at the Carlyle Shop in the future. Chuck Anabele has also voiced interest in hosting screenings at Campus Video.

I recently attended a meeting with a networking support group called Indie Cleveland, sponsored by filmmaker Alex Michaels. The meeting was well attended, and I garnered a few possibilities for future screenings in the Cleveland area from Brandon Harrisonof MDI. More details to come...